Anybody else experiencing sparkplugs won't stay clean in lawnmowers running E10 pump gas?

[FordFETruck]

Yes, that is a Clasic/Sprint/Quartro engine. Always best to tip it when the gas is very low. You can always tip it towards the front to get the blade off. In most mowers the plug is oriented toward the front and you can tip it back. Sometimes I have put heavy weights on the handle bars to hold it down. The general rule of thumb is Carb up for gravity fed carbs. Turn the valve off if you have one. These have the pulse jet carb with the bowl made into the gas tank. They are just a different animal. Very reliable engine for a push mower. Easy to work on. I am sorry they stopped making them. They had a very long run.

Anymore whenever I sharpen the blade at the end of the year I drain the gas at the same time, change oil and put it away for the winter. It's a shame they stopped making those engines, I've never had very good luck with anything else. I do not like the pulsa prime carburetors very much though, had lots of trouble with them. The old pulsa jet auto choke is the most immortal lawnmower carb I've ever seen, I own 4 of them now. I had the vac u jet auto choke variant on one, it sucked.

A while back a friend gave me a 1975 sears roto spader with a 5HP vertical shaft Briggs, sat for about 15 years he said. I had to use pliers to get the gas cap off and the inside of the tank is mega rusty and even though it was empty it reeks of old gas even still with fresh gas in it to the point the exhaust smells like stale gas. I put a new set of points in that thing and it fired right up and runs like a champ, that one is the manual choke pulsa jet, has the fuel pump diaphragm on the side like a horizontal shaft pulsa jet would but its similar to the 3.5-4hp lawnmower carb otherwise. I can't believe that thing works with how bad the tank is, and it works great.

 

[nbpt100]

What brand of mower it that red one in the picture? I do not recognize it. It sure looks in very good condition. I like keeping my older mowers too. They work good with just a little bit of maintenance.

 

[FordFETruck]

What brand of mower it that red one in the picture? I do not recognize it. It sure looks in very good condition. I like keeping my older mowers too. They work good with just a little bit of maintenance.

It's a 1976 Lawn Chief Model 60. Same exact model my dad bought brand new in 1977, and that engine on it is from my dad's mower, that's the third body it's been on now. I just finished restoring it back in June. It took me 15 years to find that thing and I looked like hell all over for one. Still have all the documentation from the one my dad bought new, everything except the receipt. One of my uncles on my mom's side is the one that sold it to my dad brand new off the showroom floor. My great grandfather bought the 21 inch self propel bagger variant not long after, no idea what happened to that he had it until he died in 1994. The red mower with white engine my grandfather paid $35 for in 1970, still runs like a top I just serviced it and painted it after I spent the entire summer mowing his lawn (no easy feat for a push mower) until the sale closed on the house. That thing sat outside untouched for 10 years when I got it, topped the oil off and filled it with gas and it started first pull in a 25-degree snowstorm and kept running. The red Toro is a pretty nice one, pushes a little hard for its size but bags well.

OK for anyone that's still following alone about the sparkplugs looking crappy. The Toro and the red and white mower both got an oil change, air filters cleaned and re oiled with the excess really rung out (Toro filter replaced, it fell apart) both got the points and condenser cleaned and checked, Toro got a new upper crank seal it was leaking for some reason. Both got new Autolite XST458 iridium spark plugs and the carburetors readjusted. I also cleaned, re oiled and squeezed the excess out of the air filter on the lawn chief and readjusted that carb today also when I mowed with it. We shall see if it improves but I didn't really find anything out of the ordinary. I've been experiencing the same and or similar buildup on newer engines as well so it's not just these dirty burning antiques.

Before anybody asks, yes, I've had new lawnmowers, no they did not ever work out for me. Every time I ever wound up with a new mower, I swear to God that Lawn chief runs better and better every year and the new ones always broke down

 

[nbpt100]

Good stuff! I am not sure if Lawn Chief did their own manufacturing and design or if they farmed it out the MTD or others. I know they were the house brand for True Value Hardware. Were they sold else where?

 

[The_Eric]

I'm still a little befuddled by your spark plugs.. are you maybe just being a little too conservative on the fuel mix and setting it too rich?

 

[97prizm]

Always skeptical of products that YTers swear by until I can try and see results (or not), for myself. I've been watching her channel for years and she is probably one of the most knowledgable and honest folks I've seen. She really knows her stuff and is not afraid to get her hands dirty. When she recommended Ethanol Shield, I did my own little water experiment like she did. It works. This is mainly why I will now pretty much exclusively use ES as my stabilizer and fuel treat for all of my OPE, 4 or 2 stroke.

Apparently on a recent video she had a customer come in with a trimmer or blower that wouldn't start or run. She's saying that now her shop is seeing bad batches of Tru-Fuel. This is why I use AV gas.

 

[Japanese]

I guess if the MMO is the cause for the cruddy plugs that's a small price to pay for the rest of it being so clean and lack of carburetor trouble across the fleet.

Did you buy a new NGK spark plug for that machine? Let's see the new plug after some hours. Are you still using Marble Mystery oil in the gas of your equipment?

 

[nbpt100]

Apparently on a recent video she had a customer come in with a trimmer or blower that wouldn't start or run. She's saying that now her shop is seeing bad batches of Tru-Fuel. This is why I use AV gas.

I have heard people say you need to shake the Tru-Fuel before you use it as can as it can separate. I am not sure if that is true but it can not hurt.

 

[RazorsEdge]

I have heard people say you need to shake the Tru-Fuel before you use it as can as it can separate. I am not sure if that is true but it can not hurt.

I've never done anything but dump it in with no issues

 

[FordFETruck]

Good stuff! I am not sure if Lawn Chief did their own manufacturing and design or if they farmed it out the MTD or others. I know they were the house brand for True Value Hardware. Were they sold else where?

They were sold at True Value exclusively as far as I know. In 1970 Cotter&Co (parent company of True Value, Coast to Coast and some other hardware chain I forget) opened their own power lawnmower factory in 1970 under the General Power Equipment name. They started off making Tru-Test lawnmowers and later Lawn Chief. The oldest Lawn Chief push mowers I can find are 1976 (the one I have) looks like 1970-1975 Tru-Test were the push mowers and base model riders, and Lawn Chief were the premium riders. MTD bought them out 1993. I have seen some older Lawn Chief riders that were Murray's in disguise, so it appears they did not make every model in house but all of the push mowers until 1993 were made in house. The steel they used seems to be really good quality it barely rusts compared to most other steel mowers I've had or worked on. That's gotta be about the most American lawnmower I ever heard of. Made by a company based in Chicago for their own stores with their own plant/machinery and sold them across the country in their own stores.

Wheeler Gran Prix are also related, but I cannot find out hardly anything about those or what stores they were sold at. They were really similar to the Lawn Chief's but green. There were also the base model Servess brand mowers sold alongside the Lawn Chief's, those were the cheap/base models.

 

[FordFETruck]

Did you buy a new NGK spark plug for that machine? Let's see the new plug after some hours. Are you still using Marble Mystery oil in the gas of your equipment?

The first one got a Denso W14LMU, the other two I put an Autolite XST458 xtreme start iridium in. I just bought another 5 gallons of gas and didn't put any MMO in, but the last gallon of old I have still has it. All mowers have had the ignition serviced, air filters serviced and carburetors readjusted, we'll see how they look after a while.

 

[FordFETruck]

I'm still a little befuddled by your spark plugs.. are you maybe just being a little too conservative on the fuel mix and setting it too rich?

These engines don't start well set on the lean side, but they aren't overly rich where I set them to.

 

[50yr Street Mech]

Spark plugs never stay clean on a small engine. They either carbon up or oil up....sometimes a little of both. I'm always changing them. Get a few seasons out of them, then garbage. I do have a lot of old flatheads, that could be the reason too. All trash picked too, but they don't burn oil. Crappy carbs I think.

 

[Opelman]

Some of the plugs I replaced over the summer. Even the ones from fuel injected engines looked lousy.

 

[50yr Street Mech]

Gee. Carbonized. Shocking on ethanol pump gas. Looks the same as the tailpipes on cars/trucks. Imagine what the valves look like, and piston rings . Unfortunately, there is NO product on the market to neutralize ethanol. I did research that fuel stabilizers , like stabil, will help a bit. The ONLY solution is to buy ethanol free fuel, like at boat marina's. Boats only run on pure gasoline or diesel. No ethanol. That will keep the plugs clean, and valves, and rings. All my lawn equipment run lousy on pump fuel. I usually add a dash of Techron and Stabil to my 5 gallon storage cans. They run a bit cleaner on that Frankenbrew. Just changed the plugs on my Kohler 20 RESA whole house generator today. 2 cylinder Kohler engine. 4 yr old plugs. Natural gas fueled. They were spotless !!!! Ridiculously clean !!!!!! Machine exercises 1X a week for 1/2 hour. Even the oil was clean !!! 18 months on that oil... The machine is a 2015. PUMP GAS IS GARBAGE.

 

[Japanese]

Even the ones from fuel injected engines looked lousy.

That one on the lower right looks fine.

 

[The_Eric]

I had an interesting conversation the other day with a parts delivery guy - his family used to be in the gas station business and he seemed pretty knowledgeable. To summarize, he said that not all fuel is created equal and that there are 2 basic types of fuel - blended and open market. He says that you want the blended fuel as that will have the proper additives for a healthy fuel system and greater fuel economy. The open market fuel is what they may have pushed through a pipeline after something like fertilizer was transported and will not have as much or any of certain additives. This applies to both ethanol blended fuels and straight gas.

Perhaps OP is unwittingly getting crummy open market fuel?

 

[97prizm]

They were sold at True Value exclusively as far as I know. In 1970 Cotter&Co (parent company of True Value, Coast to Coast and some other hardware chain I forget) opened their own power lawnmower factory in 1970 under the General Power Equipment name. They started off making Tru-Test lawnmowers and later Lawn Chief. The oldest Lawn Chief push mowers I can find are 1976 (the one I have) looks like 1970-1975 Tru-Test were the push mowers and base model riders, and Lawn Chief were the premium riders. MTD bought them out 1993. I have seen some older Lawn Chief riders that were Murray's in disguise, so it appears they did not make every model in house but all of the push mowers until 1993 were made in house. The steel they used seems to be really good quality it barely rusts compared to most other steel mowers I've had or worked on. That's gotta be about the most American lawnmower I ever heard of. Made by a company based in Chicago for their own stores with their own plant/machinery and sold them across the country in their own stores.

Wheeler Gran Prix are also related, but I cannot find out hardly anything about those or what stores they were sold at. They were really similar to the Lawn Chief's but green. There were also the base model Servess brand mowers sold alongside the Lawn Chief's, those were the cheap/base models.

Seems like MTD bought up nearly every ope lawn manufacturer if they grew big enough. The brands they own is astonishing. Alot are kind of redundant and I'm surprised that many weren't given the axe.

 

[FordFETruck]

Seems like MTD bought up nearly every ope lawn manufacturer if they grew big enough. The brands they own is astonishing. Alot are kind of redundant and I'm surprised that many weren't given the axe.

Yep, they buy up these companies that most had their own designs, usually axe those designs and put that companies name on the crappy MTD product for a few years, then kill em off entirely. What a disgusting company.

 

[FordFETruck]

I had an interesting conversation the other day with a parts delivery guy - his family used to be in the gas station business and he seemed pretty knowledgeable. To summarize, he said that not all fuel is created equal and that there are 2 basic types of fuel - blended and open market. He says that you want the blended fuel as that will have the proper additives for a healthy fuel system and greater fuel economy. The open market fuel is what they may have pushed through a pipeline after something like fertilizer was transported and will not have as much or any of certain additives. This applies to both ethanol blended fuels and straight gas.

Perhaps OP is unwittingly getting crummy open market fuel?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the open market fuel is not the top tier fuel and what is sold at grocery store gas stations. Been getting Fred Meyer gas mostly for the last several years since I frequently get at least 50 cents off per gallon and can't afford much else these days. I used to buy a lot of Shell and 76 top tier fuel 5-15 years ago and can't say I noticed much difference in the lawnmowers.